


FIC:  In Extremis

by Hippediva



Category: John Wilmot - Fandom, Lord Rochester
Genre: Illness, Other, dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-22
Updated: 2010-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:23:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hippediva/pseuds/Hippediva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On May 20th or 21st, 1680, John Wilmot left Adderbury Manor in the flush of a temporary alleviation of his physical ills.  Consider this May 23rd.  For <a href="http://absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com/"><b>absinthe_shadow</b></a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	FIC:  In Extremis

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**Current mood:** |   
awake  
---|---  
**Current music:** | silence  
**Entry tags:** |  [fiction](http://hippediva.livejournal.com/tag/fiction)  
  
_**FIC: In Extremis**_  
DISCLAIMER: Rochester belongs to God. I could not own him.  
PAIRING: Rochester/Downs, others (implied)  
RATING: R for language, intent

Summary: On May 20th or 21st, 1680, John Wilmot left Adderbury Manor in the flush of a temporary alleviation of his physical ills. Consider this May 23rd. For [](http://absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com/profile)[**absinthe_shadow**](http://absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com/).

His fingers clutched at the windowsill, breath frosting the heavy glass until it was as dim as his eyes. A mad notion, to think he could see the fields and trees, the spring flowers wilting under humid summer.

His breath came up short, his grip tightened, nails uncut for too long digging into the paint, leaving small crescents for some future occupant to trace until they were obliterated by time and layers of new pigment. They would haunt that sill, buried beneath ground colour and varnish, clawed into the room, the vista and his soul.

The little French clock on the mantel struck two and he remembered. Two o'clock. There was that horse to inspect, the stable-boy to bugger, some vizard drenched in eau de lavande by the stables and next thing he'd know it would be past four, the King fractious and his head spinning.

He stopped trying to focus.

Two o'clock and wasn't Savile intent on finding that damned serving girl he'd praised down Cheapside, the one with the 'alabaster nipples'? He grinned and stifled a laugh.

"If her nipples be the colour of such stone, you may be sure the cunt is ice."

His voice was a rasping whisper, floating around him in the darkened room like an evil imp.

Two o'clock...no, two and one quarter? He forced his aching legs to move, the canes grinding into the floor.

Step by agonising step, he spraddled himself across the few feet to the bed. He was careful, panting and shuddering, his stiffened knees shrieking protest, to set the crutches down gently. Any noise and his damned mother would be in here again and he wanted peace and quiet, for just one more day.

Honestly, they were making his head ache; his mother, Elizabeth, the doctor, Carey, all of them. He wondered if he could sneak Allcock in and get some wine.

Why? He didn't get any pleasure of it now. All it would mean would be his prick screaming, pissing blood and God-knew-what-else along with a head come morning. Hardly worth the effort at all.

He sat on the side of the bed, his hip joints groaning and tried to remember what it felt like to live without pain. His body was done. He'd finished it off like a coward, leaving it to languish and suffer before dying. Like Downs.

Jesus.

He barely remembered the fight starting. It was as foggy in his head as the world when he opened his eyes. He remembered the taste of Downs' kisses; tobacco and sack, salt and desire; long limbs tangled together above that trull in some inn, soft and stinking of sweat, juices running together like pus from the festering wound between her legs.

Unbidden, the words of the Confession sounded in his head.

_...we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness..._

For just a moment, his spine straightened. "I object to manifold sins. Wickedness I freely admit." The pull of his face into its accustomed wry smile made the bandage on his nose tug. His lips twisted, chancred and raw, only the dimple clear as when he was a child of twelve.

Twelve?

Woodstock. I'm at Woodstock. Why am I not at Adderbury? The exquisite pain had left oblivion as a balm. He couldn't recall. Twelve o'clock? Yes, the witching hour and that time, blazoned in Venice during Carnavale. The end of all things against a wall behind a pillar with a pretty tart in purple silk. Dark eyes peering through slits of velvet, when he was sixteen and prey to such amusements. Dark secrets in other slits. He snorted with amusement.

Some part of hope remained until he wobbled up on the crutches once more and was distracted by a flash in the corner of his ruined left eye. "What?" He turned and squinted, trying to make out the face watching him.

He stared, then reached behind his head to pull the bandage free. His lip curled.

"See how Love has rewarded me."

Love? That was supposed to be sweet and soft. If that was love, he'd lay five to twenty he'd lain loving in a haytick his whole life. What of after? Was there anything but the silence of the churchyard and the howling of hell?

God.

Nearly twelve. Mr. Gifford's thighs against him. A reassuring hand. The next morning, a new awareness of his lashes against his lids when he closed his eyes.

He peered into the mirror, unable to see them as anything but a smudge of darkness beneath his good eye.

God.

The flesh of his nose was eaten away to vast caverns of slime and raw, diseased flesh.

"And if you want a fuck, you may have this. In faith, it resembles a cunt and smells so."

Spite was no recourse.

_The remembrance of them is grievous to us. The burden of them intolerable._

His abscessed bladder gave a lurch and his face twisted. Hideous, deformed, devoid of any beauty. He couldn't see the one, bright dark eye, glittering like a raven's, soft as velvet, or the dimple that tugged at his swollen lip.

His legs gave way and he fell heavily. He heard them running, felt them lift him, his mother's hand on his forehead. Pan within trotted off to greener groves and he laughed.

_Have mercy on me, oh Lord._


End file.
